The present invention relates to an installation for the treatment of products, of the type comprising:                containers for products to be treated and equipped with means for emitting radiofrequency waves to supply product identification information,        at least one workstation for carrying out a product treatment operation, the workstation being equipped with means for emitting radiofrequency waves to supply workstation identification information, and        a system for managing information relating to the products, the system comprising a database, an information processing unit and at least one component itself comprising:                    at least one antenna for receiving the radiofrequency waves emitted by the emitting means, and            means for transmitting, to the information processing unit, identification information received from the means for emitting radiofrequency waves so that the information processing unit combines the product and workstation identification information and stores it in the database.                        
The invention applies, in particular, to the treatment of biological substances or samples and, in particular, to the culture, preservation and/or analysis of cells or microorganisms.
An installation of the aforementioned type is known from the document FR-2 817 370. The means for emitted radiofrequency waves from the containers and workstations are transponders. The component for receiving radiofrequency waves comprises a support plate intended to receive the containers of products to be treated. The plate is equipped with an antenna for receiving radiofrequency waves and with a means for transmitting the received information from the transponders to the information processing unit.
An installation of this type allows, in addition to the product treatment, tracking or traceability of the treated products by combining information relating to their identity, and to that of the workstations in which they have been placed and therefore the treatment operations to which they have been subjected.
However, this tracking necessitates the use of the support plate. If the operator does not use such a plate, tracking is not carried out.
An object of the invention is to solve this problem by providing an installation for treating products of the aforementioned type which allows information relating to the products to be managed more reliably.